Image Credits: South Dakota Standard.
I love it when conservatives eat their own…
A conservative website, American Greatness, published a piece Tuesday claiming that, according to “multiple” sources, [South Dakota Governor Kristi] Noem has been having an affair with Lewandowski “for months.” The website did not identify any of the sources.
Lewandowski was Donald Trump’s first presidential campaign manager. He was fired by the campaign in 2016 but remains part of the former president’s inner circle and ran the pro-Trump Make America Great Again Action super PAC…
Noem and Lewandowski have traveled extensively together across the country for political events, and he has promoted her to members of the media. At one event in January, they were spotted partying together late in a hotel bar.
Sadly, the Post goes off on a tangent about Lewandowski’s other problems—apparently he’s back to his old tricks of sexually assaulting and physically abusing women—but thankfully we have one of my favorite punching bags, the ivermectin-guzzling circus clowns at American Greatness to give us the details about the alleged affair (yes, I feel dirty linking to them too).
Lewandowski accompanied Noem across the country as she stumped for Trump’s reelection last year. According to South Dakota Republicans, former Noem chief of staff Joshua Shields left, in part, because of Lewandowski’s butting in. Lewandowski, who is married with four children, still has the former president’s ear, which he reportedly uses to Noem’s advantage.
Noem, a married mother of three, has been eyed as a possible running mate for a Trump presidential bid in 2024. Bloomberg reported in March that Trump’s closest advisors are pushing either for a black or female vice presidential candidate. Senator Tim Scott (R-S.C.) and Noem have both been named among the favorites by members of Trump’s inner circle.
On March 5, Donald Trump, Jr. and Kimberly Guilfoyle hosted a fundraiser for Noem at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort and home in Palm Beach. Noem was invited to a second fundraiser there in April. Lewandowski has played a key role in boosting Noem’s clout with Trump.
In a brief interview with the New York Times, Lewandowski praised Noem as having “a huge future in Republican politics.” But these recent revelations, in combination with other challenges, threaten her chances of winning a ticket to the White House.
“There are members of Congress close to Mar-a-Lago who have called the affair ‘an open secret’ and worried that about Noem’s viability as a national candidate and within the movement,” a source familiar with the matter told American Greatness.
Now, much of this may well be driven by right-wing hostility to Noem, who apparently went off the reservation by killing a bill that would have banned transgender women from competing in women’s sports and “refusing to prevent private companies from imposing vaccine mandates on employees” (so much for Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, I guess). The writers at AG are true Trump believers, all with ties to the far-right Claremont Institute, and it looks like they smell blood in the water. As an aside, I used to know editors Ben Boychuk and Julie Ponzi via Facebook—they’re former friends of an old editor of mine, and some of the most miserable, dishonest, and vicious people I’ve engaged with in my whole life. So this may all be a tempest in a teapot, trying to ding Noem before 2024 with anything they can throw at her, for veering even a little bit from the hymnbook—Lord knows the complaints about corruption ring hollow from people who are all-in with Trumpism.
But who cares what the stated rationale is—everyone knows that when it comes to morality and family values, the GOP is the party of “do as I say, not as I do”—the effect is still the same. The GOP is eating their own, and from the sound of things, it’s delicious.
